ABSTRACT

Background: Hypertension is the commonest medical disorder encountered during pregnancy with a reported frequency of 9.8% in general population. Though the exact cause is not yet known, a lot of factors have been found associated with pregnancy induced hypertension. One such factor is maternal serum dyslipidemia. However, in most of the previous studies, there was doubt about the possible association between maternal serum dyslipidemia and pregnancy induced hypertension.

Aim: To determine the frequency of pregnancy induced hypertension among pregnant women visiting a tertiary care facility and to compare the serum lipid profile in normotensive and hypertensive pregnant women.

Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department of Lahore Medical and Dental college and Ghurki trust teaching hospital, Lahore, between 1/01/2017 to 30/06/2017. 200 patients who presented in the outpatient’s department and fulfilledthe inclusion criteriawere included in this study after taking an informed written consent. Known hypertensive patients and those with underlying vascular disease were excluded.

Results: The results showed that 23(11.5%) patients were hypertensive while majority (88.5%) of the patients were normotensive. There was significant difference among the two groups in terms of serum triglycerides (163.70±15.11 vs. 108.59±7.84 mg/dl; p=0.000), total cholesterol (192.83±13.13 vs. 148.89±5.821 mg/dl; p=.001), LDL (133.40±10.10 vs. 73.56±2.26 mg/dl; p=0.000), VLDL (113.55±9.01 vs. 48.63±2.72 mg/dl; p=0.000) and HDL (37.41±1.85 vs. 52.54±1.63 mg/dl; p=.033).

Conclusion: Pregnancy induced hypertension is quite frequent among pregnant women and there is significant association between maternal serum dyslipidemia (raised triglycerides, total cholesterol, LDL, VLDL and reduced HDL) and pregnancy induced hypertension.

Keywords: Pregnancy Induced Hypertension, Lipid Profile, Cholesterol